Parentheses in lineinfile line argument

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1

Hi all!

I’m trying to use the lineinfile module to configure NFS exports and I need to put parentheses in my line argument.

If I do something like this

  • name: Export the NFS directory for root
    lineinfile: dest=/etc/exports
    regexp=‘/root/nfs’
    line=‘/root/nfs 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0(rw,no_root_squash,subtree_check)’

I get a line in my /etc/exports that looks like

‘/root/nfs 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0(rw,no_root_squash,subtree_check)’

That is, surrounded by quotes. The problem is that this format is invalid, so I have to remove the quotes.
I made a few tests, and I found out that removing the parentheses works

  • name: Test
    lineinfile: dest=/etc/exports
    line=“/root/nfs 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0”

yields the following line (without quotes)

/root/nfs 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0

whereas reintroducing the parentheses reintroduces also quotes

  • name: Test
    lineinfile: dest=/etc/exports
    line=“/root/nfs 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0()”

‘/root/nfs 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0()’

I tried to escape the parentheses and this removes the quotes, but escape chars remain!

  • name: Test
    lineinfile: dest=/etc/exports
    line=“/root/nfs 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0()”

/root/nfs 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0()

Is this a bug? Am I missing something?

Thank you very much :slight_smile:

Matteo

2

Lineinfile doesn’t have any particular handling of a parenthesis.

I don’t think I see a bug in the above, but it can be hard to use.

I recommend templates for 99.9999% of all use cases, above lineinfile.

Please do confirm your ansible version if you don’t mind…

3

May I suggest the following way of doing it:

`

  • name: mounting shares
    mount: name={{ item.name }} src={{ item.src }} fstype=nfs opts={{ item.opts }} state=mounted
    with_items:
  • { name: ‘/root/nfs’, src: ‘hostname:/ExportName’, opts: ‘defaults’ }
    […]
    tags: nfs

`

The mount module works like a charm and the documentation is really clear on the various states it supports.

4

Thank you for the suggestions and sorry for the late reply.

I’ll try the templates module. As for the mount module, as far as I understant it’s to configure /etc/fstab on the client side. I’m trying to configure the server side, i.e. /etc/exports. Anyway, I’ll definetly use the mount module on the clients.

Back to the parentheses problem, the version of Ansible I’m using is 1.7 from the Fedora repositories.

Matteo

5

If you like, please file a bug on github.com/ansible/ansible so we can investigate.

6

Hi,

Me also I need to change the /etc/exports but I can’t use the template as this config file is shared with another system which don’t use ansible :smiley:

I did some investigation and in fact just “t.t()” is enough to generate the quote (took me some hours to find the good combinaison).

But anyway there is a fix in 1.7.1 (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/8535)

Cheers,
Vincent

7

Yep 1.7.1 is already released now, so should be good to go!